


Let's Not Just Disappear

by gemini_melia



Series: Old Habits/New Ways [3]
Category: Better Call Saul (TV), Breaking Bad
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Character Study, Heavy Angst, Just a ton of angst, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2018-09-27 19:45:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10043219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gemini_melia/pseuds/gemini_melia
Summary: Saul and Jesse had a plan to leave behind the terrible lives they'd built and start fresh. But things were never going to be that easy.





	1. Chapter 1

 

This morning is no different from any of the previous 168 mornings that Gene has spent in Omaha. The alarm goes off at 7 am. He showers, shaves, puts on a pot of coffee, and pulls out his pack of Nicorette. His doctor is concerned about his health, and Gene is concerned about his wallet - assistant managers at Cinnabon franchises aren’t what you’d call rolling in it. So he’s cut out the cigs and now eats whole wheat toast and scrambled egg whites that come out of a carton for breakfast.

As usual, it tastes like a combination of dry desert and snot, which Gene feels is an appropriate depiction of his life up until this point.

Or, it had been, Gene realizes. When he checks the time on his phone this morning - 8:45, just enough time to get to the mall by 9 to open the shop up for 10 - does he realize that it’s already September. His chest does a little flip flop and the hair on the back of his neck stands up. He’s not used to being caught unaware - in fact, he does everything he can to avoid such a situation - but somehow he has gone soft, and it only took six months of playing it straight for him to start letting his mind wander.

When he walks out the door, thermos of coffee in hand, to the little red hatchback he’d bought in cash during his first weekend in Omaha, his thoughts drift back to September one year ago.

If he were honest with himself - something Saul Goodman never liked to do and which Jimmy McGill had never been very good at - Gene’s thoughts have never really strayed too far from the events of September 2009. The events of a few short days a year ago had turned his life on its ear and doused it in gasoline. To be fair, and to be as much of a realist as possible - at least Saul had been a realist, too, unlike Jimmy - Gene’s life had already been in the crapper before then. But there was nothing quite like a fleeting glimmer of hope to make a drowning man start kicking his legs again.

The fact that this glimmer of hope had come in the form of a scrawny, meth-slinging Jesse Pinkman is something that, to this day, Gene doesn’t quite understand. But what he does understand is that sometimes it only takes one error in judgment to send that glimmer of hope skittering away, back into the darkness. He’s spent the last six months trying to pinpoint that moment - the point of no return, the moment of weakness, some other pointless, trite cliche to sum his life up into a series of significant beats.

Those few fateful days in September were a springboard into the land of possibility. But as Saul, Jimmy, and especially Gene know, some things go sour as soon as they’re exposed to the slightest bit of bad air, and the air they’d been breathing was fucking polluted. Gene always thought Saul could have survived that pollution - hell, he’d been breathing it for years, most of it of his own making. But some shit was too toxic even for the cockroaches of the world.

Even now, sitting in morning traffic, breathing in the fresh Nebraska air, Gene can’t help but feel like this is just another fleeting glimmer.

On the radio, his usual oldies station cuts to a short news segment and Gene’s attention is drawn when he hears, “...Walter White, infamous drug kingpin associated with a methamphetamine ring operating in the Southwest, has been sighted in Albuquerque, New Mexico…”

A chill inadvertently runs down Gene’s spine and his hands clench tightly at the steering wheel. Damn, sometimes Gene hates being right.


	2. Chapter 2

Gene starts his days counting inventory. It’s not that he thinks there’s a thief under his employ, or that it really needs counting more than once a week, but Gene’s found over the last six months that having order in his life is the only thing that keeps him grounded. If it weren’t for the order and routine of his days, if it weren’t for the sheer predictability, then there wouldn’t be much to keep Gene from backsliding into his old ways - into _Saul_ or even _Jimmy_.

In the early days, Gene had looked over his shoulder at every sudden move. He’d been twitchy in a way that did him more harm than good. At the time, he’d thought he was being vigilant, being watchful - for Jesse, for Walt, for one of Mike Ehrmantraut's many loyal men. But staring at people, jumping at every hand reaching into a pocket, that had brought him more attention, more curious, uncomfortable glances. And the more glances he’d got, suddenly, he was no longer the forgettable guy with the forgettable face working a forgettable job in a forgettable city.

So now Gene is invisible. More invisible than Saul, whose loudness let him pass through the world underestimated and hence, undetected, and definitely more invisible than Jimmy, whose guile was almost childishly brash, like a kid whistling innocently in the corner, mouth covered in chocolate.

Counting inventory helps Gene’s endeavor toward invisibility. Not only does it literally hide him from the outside world, but the simple numbers game gives him a respite from his thoughts, from anything that isn’t sitting right in front of him - in this case, it’s simply canisters of flour, salt, sugar, and some cinnamon to break up the bland whiteness.

Today, though, Gene’s thoughts are not so easily subdued. Today, amidst the whiteness of the sugar, the flour, the salt, is another white that is clanging in Gene’s head for attention. _Walter White, infamous drug kingpin...Walter White...sighted in Albuquerque, New Mexico...Walter White...Walter White._

After a while, Gene leaves the pantry in favor of the large walk-in refrigerator, where he stands amidst large cartons of lemonade and iced coffee. In here, he can see his shaky breathes, which he tries to steady, but which he inevitably ends up holding, if only to hide the evidence of his weakness.

Suddenly, the sound of Jesse’s voice rakes across his brain. _Take a breath, man,_ he’d said, as they’d both stood half-dressed in Saul’s kitchen, reeling from what had, quite frankly, been an equally terrifying and humiliating confrontation with Mike Ehrmantraut. _Take a breath_.

At the time, the words had helped soothe Saul’s nerves. At the time, they had just gotten away from danger unscathed. Gene tries to listen to the kid now, willing his heart to stop hammering in his chest. It does little to calm him.

Instead, all he can do is think back to those fateful months that led him to where he was now: cowering in a freezer in a Nebraska mall.

* * *

It had only been a couple days since Saul last saw Jesse, but the kid had been distant, which was becoming his new M.O., and it was throwing Saul for a loop. Between frantically trying to keep Mike out of the hands of the DEA and wondering just what they’d have to do to buy silence from Mike’s nine guys, they hadn’t gotten much time to themselves.  

“So, is it true you’re out?” Saul had asked once Walt had left the office, heading to the airport for Mike’s go bag. It was the first time Saul had had the chance to broach the topic with the kid in weeks. Weeks since Jesse had sat on Saul’s balcony hatching their escape plan, and now here they sat with the fruits of their labor - well, Jesse’s labor - finally coming through. “Hey kid, that’s great. That’s what we’ve been waiting for.”

Saul moved around the desk to stand near Jesse, who was sitting in his usual client’s chair, hands deep in the pockets of his hoodie.

“You think he’s gonna get away?” Jesse said, like he hadn’t heard a word Saul had just said. He fidgeted, shifting in his chair and avoiding Saul’s gaze.

“Mike? Yeah, don’t worry about him. He’s practically in the clear. 48 hours and he’ll be on the beach somewhere. Where do old timers like to go? Florida, right? I’d bet you anything he’ll plant his ass in Florida and never look back.”

Jesse still looked anxious, but he nodded slowly. Saul leaned against the front of his desk, kicking lightly at Jesse’s sneaker-clad foot. “You okay? Not to sound like my nagging ex-wife, but you don’t call, you barely respond to my texts. Walt says you’re out, so why are we sitting around here waiting for Mike’s men to snitch when we could be halfway to Fiji by now? Say the word and I’ll call my guy right now.”

Jesse sighed and finally looked up, meeting Saul’s gaze. The kid looked like he’d missed more than a few days of sleep and he was overdue for a shave.

“I don’t have the money, Saul,” Jesse told him, sounding defeated and more than a little lost. He clenched his fists in his lap and looked away.

“But it’s coming, right? Walt said -”

“Mr. White won’t give it to me.”

“You’re shitting me. Why the fuck not?” The hairs on the back of Saul’s neck stood up and his stomach dropped with dread. If there were ever a reason to get out, then this was it. Walt had always been a hardass, but he had always been fair, at least when it came to Jesse. Saul’s mind raced, wondering what he was missing. So much was suddenly spinning out of their control.

Jesse stood quickly, ignoring Saul’s protest as he moved toward the door. “I just..I gotta go,” Jesse mumbled. As he reached for the doorknob he looked back and Saul thought for a moment that the kid might say something to make sense of things. “Let me know what you hear about Mike.”

And then he was gone, leaving Saul alone and wondering just how soon everything would come crashing down around them.

* * *

Saul texted the kid later that night once Walt had assured him that Mike was safe and on his way out of Albuquerque. After that, though, all of Saul’s calls went to voicemail and the kid didn’t respond to his texts either. Saul had half a mind to drive over to Jesse’s to make sure he was okay, to see where they stood, but he’d stopped himself. He told himself it was to give the kid his space, but in reality Saul was scared. Without a plan to silence Mike’s men, they were all of them sitting ducks, and the last thing they needed was to be found together where the DEA would come sniffing.

It turned out that Saul didn’t have to go over there after all. It was after eleven, and Saul was dozing to the sounds of HGTV, empty glass of scotch cradled to his chest, when his phone chimed. He started and sat up, because that chime was Jesse’s - a persistent echoing chime that pulsed discordantly. The kid had set it up on Saul’s phone himself and Saul wasn’t about to go figuring out how to change it back.

Saul flipped open his phone to a text that simply read _you home?_

Before Saul could respond, there was a buzz at his door. His heart jumped at the possibilities, and his vision flooded with images of the DEA knocking down his door. But one look through the peephole revealed a dishevelled Jesse.

When Saul opened the door, Jesse stepped through without so much as a hey, charging past Saul as if he weren’t even there.

“Give a guy some warning, would ya kid?” Saul muttered. But Jesse wasn’t listening - he made a beeline for Saul’s liquor cabinet, where he pulled out his nicest bottle of scotch and a glass, and poured himself a generous few fingers.

Saul’s anxiety was immediately joined by concern. “Hey, easy there,” he said, stepping up to where Jesse was standing by the cabinet, glass now raised to his lips. “Since when do you drink scotch, anyway?”

Jesse grimaced as he took a second long swallow. “Since who cares. It does the job.”

Saul snatched the bottle from Jesse’s hand. “There are less expensive ways to get shitfaced. You want me to go to the corner store and get you a bottle of Jack? Some PBR?” Saul moved to set the bottle down and Jesse stepped forward, hand tangling into Saul’s shirt.

“No, no, _stay_ ,” Jesse said, voice suddenly turning frantic. “Please, just...don’t leave me alone.”

Now Saul’s anxiety was a tangible force in his chest. He looked down at Jesse, at his wild eyes, at the smudges of sleeplessness beneath them. “Hey,” he said softly, covering Jesse’s hand with his own, and pulling the glass from his other. “What’s going on, kid? Has the DEA come sniffing? Is it Mike? Walt said he was out. Did something happen? You gotta tell me this shit, okay?”

Jesse pulled away from Saul and moved to the sectional sofa, where he hunched into a corner, hood drawn up over his head, like he wanted it to swallow him whole.

“Just shut up, okay?” Jesse pled, sitting forward and putting his head in his hands.

That look of sheer, desperate misery on Jesse’s face was enough for Saul to stop speaking. That look was never a good one, and it was always associated with Walt.

“Jesse, would you talk to me?” he repeated.

“It’s not gonna work,” Jesse repeated, gritting his teeth. “Without the money none of this is going to work. We were too fucking stupid to think it ever would.”

Saul knew their plan had been a long shot. And now, knowing that Walt was boxing Jesse out, they really had nowhere to turn. Combined with the very real possibility of being ratted out at any moment, Saul felt caged. They were always caged, he thought bitterly. Every moment they spent together was time spent hiding, time spent stuck, or somewhere laughably in between.

Saul sat down next to Jesse, a bitter chuckle escaping his mouth as he plunked the bottle of scotch down on the glass coffee table. He reached out a hand to pluck Jesse’s glass from his hand and refill it, along with his own. When Jesse looked at him, Saul couldn’t understand the expression on his face.

“Mr. White said he’ll take care of Mike’s men,” Jesse told him, swirling his newly refilled glass around and watching the liquor swirl in a shaky centrifuge.

“What does that mean?” Saul asked, and the moment the words left his mouth, he knew that he didn’t want to know.

Jesse shrugged. “It means...our lives are in his hands, whether we like it or not.”

What else is new, he thought, but all he said was a grim, “Cheers, kid.” Saul tucked himself back into the sofa and downed his glass, letting the burn of the liquor stream down his throat, and let him feel anything but the numb panic that was creeping its way up his shoulders.

Saul let his thoughts drift back to the early days of his time with Jesse. Drinking and fucking and forgetting - fumblings behind the locked doors of Saul’s office, hidden in the shadows of darkened parking lots, and one memorable romp in the back alley behind Saul’s office, where they’d gotten stuck in a flash thunderstorm when Saul had accidentally locked them out.

After their weekend in September, Saul thought things had shifted, had maybe even grown. But why would things change, he thought bitterly. _How_ could they change when all they ever did was live each day hoping it wasn’t their last? How could you count on someone to watch your back when they were busy looking over their shoulder at every turn? When all was said and done, when they eventually made it out - _if_ they made it out - what would there be to keep them together?

Next to him, Jesse shifted forward and lifted the glass to his lips, tipping the entire contents into his mouth before swiping the back of his hand across his face. Before Saul even registered the movement, Jesse was springing forward onto his lap, where he delicately pried the empty glass from Saul’s hand and placed it behind him on the coffee table.

Saul wasn’t sure what the kid was after tonight, but he let it happen as it had always happened before. He didn’t let himself think too hard as Jesse pressed his lips against his, the warmth of the scotch heavy on his tongue. The liquor seemed to have calmed Jesse down some - his movements were less frantic as he let his hands roam across Saul’s chest and into his hair, let his hips grind against Saul’s.

Saul let out a low moan into the kid’s mouth, tightening his hands on Jesse’s hips, and the kid took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, to lick into Saul’s mouth, to run his teeth along Saul’s lower lip.

The longer Jesse worried at Saul’s mouth, the closer Saul pulled their hips together, setting a quick rhythm that sent their cocks sliding against each other through too many layers.

When Jesse pulled away, breathing heavy and eyes glazed, Saul asked breathlessly, “What do you want?”

Jesse looked him in the eye for the first time that night, and his gaze was what Saul could only call hunted. “I just want to forget,” he gasped. Before Saul could say anything, Jesse leaned back in, running his tongue along Saul’s jaw and down the curve of his neck, all the while tugging at Saul’s belt and fly.

Beneath the heady rush of arousal, there was a twist in Saul’s gut telling him that there was still something he was missing, that the kid was hiding something from him. But a small voice in his head was persistently telling him to take what was given him, that this is what they were to each other and pushing the kid would do nothing but lose what little he had, that saying anything would leave him alone in the emptiness of his condo, with nothing but the home shopping network to keep him company.

He listened to the voice, pulling Jesse closer, running his hands up under his hoodie and t-shirt to feel warm skin over too-skinny ribs. He could be Jesse’s port in this neverending storm - hell, he _wanted_ to be, especially when it involved the soft pant of Jesse’s breath in his ear as he ground down against Saul’s thigh. Who knew where they would end up, if they’d ever manage to worm their way out of Albuquerque once and for all, but in the meantime, why mess with a good thing? They could keep doing what they’d always done.

In the early hours of the morning, where the sun was just starting to shine weakly over the Sandia foothills, Saul woke in his bed. His mouth was fuzzy with the taste of old scotch and he let his mind drift to Jesse, to fumbling on the sofa that moved to tumbling in bed when the kid got impatient, and when Saul’s back had begun to protest. As he stretched he remembered the row of purpling bruises along his neck that he’d have to cover up.

He rolled over, thoughts on a lazy fuck before work, but the other side of the bed was empty, long cold, and Jesse was gone.

* * *

Jesse’s recent bootycall aside, Saul didn’t see the kid for a month. He thought, with the news of Walt’s latest stunt, with Mike’s men _gone_ , that the tension would lift, that things might go back to the way they were. But Saul couldn’t shake his anxiety. Besides a few stray texts, all of Saul’s calls to Jesse went to voicemail, changed to a generic robotic voice that left his insides crawling, leaving Saul wishing for the grating tones of Jesse’s _yo yo yo_ , and wondering where it’d gone _._ These days, he didn’t know if the kid had skipped town without him or was dead in a ditch somewhere. It left Saul with a chronic stiffness in his joints, a pressure in his chest, and a dull pounding behind his eyes that left him sleepless more nights than he preferred.

Saul told himself that things would be fine. They were in the clear now with Mike’s men gone. The number of people left to rat them out was down to a number Saul could count on one hand, which was a far cry from where they’d been a month ago.

The only upside to all this, the only thing that kept Saul from holing up in his condo, away from everything, was that the money was flowing in, faster than Saul had ever seen it. If his cut was any indication, then there was no way Skyler White could launder all that money out of a measly little car wash. She’d need to buy every car wash in the city. If Walt wasn’t hollowing out his mattress and stuffing his pillows with it, Saul wasn’t sure where the bastard was putting so much dirty cash.

As if on cue, Saul’s intercom buzzed and Francesca let him know in her usual dulcet tones that Walt was there for their weekly drop-off. The man entered with his usual duffle and his usual hard glare that Saul was never sure if he should take personally or not.

These days, Saul was trying to stay on his best behavior. In all his years in this business, Saul had learned the art of when to run his mouth and when to let actions speak for themselves. But Walter White never quite fit the mold of the men he’d worked for. After Walt had added orchestrating the deaths of ten men across three prisons in two minutes to his list of accomplishments, Saul was left working extra hard to keep himself on steady ground. And the only way to stay on Walt’s good side meant keeping his trap shut, lest the man change his mind and decide that Saul was too great a risk - or simply too much of a goddamned annoyance.

But something about that day, about all the days that were building up with nothing but sleepless nights and radio silence from Jesse, turned Saul weak, turned him into a goddamned chump. When Walt plunked down the cash, Saul blurted out, “So how’s the kid been?”

Walt turned his sharp gaze on Saul, and Saul immediately kicked himself for his lack of self-restraint when it came to Jesse Pinkman. If Chuck were alive to see him now, he’d be laughing his ass off. _Restraint, Jimmy,_ he’d say with a smug chuckle. _All you need is a little restraint._ But Jimmy had never been good at restraint, and Saul was at his breaking point.

“I’m going to assume you’re not asking how either of my _children_ are doing,” Walt said slowly, eyebrow cocked. The bastard eyed him like a reptile sizing up its next meal, and Saul had to keep himself from edging his chair away from his desk to put more space between them. Instead he sat straighter and adjusted the lapels of his suit jacket, shaking off the sound of Chuck in his ear murmuring, _You’re going to get someone killed, Jimmy._

“Pinkman’s been unusually quiet, is all I’m saying,” Saul said as casually as he could, determined not to let Walter White cow him. “Thought maybe he’d skipped town with his money. Like Mike.”

If anything, Walt’s gaze became even sharper, and Saul wondered, not for the first time, if he was missing a pertinent piece of the puzzle that had become his life. Walt’s forehead crinkled and he leaned closer to Saul, placing his hands on Saul’s desk.

“Jesse wanted out, so he’s out,” Walt practically spat, and Saul held firm in his chair. “He’s no longer my responsibility - not that he ever was.”

With that, the man simply turned around and stalked out of the office, leaving Saul with his money and his now-familiar sense of dread.

Saul let his mind wander back to images of a hunted Jesse gulping down scotch on his sofa, let that memory butt up against Walt’s sharp defensiveness. Saul wasn’t an idiot - he knew that he was missing something, and missing something big. He wasn’t as naive as Jimmy was to think that he’d get answers to the mounting list of questions by waiting for someone to hand them to him.

Saul picked up his cell phone and toyed with the thought of calling the kid. But he’d been doing that for weeks with nothing to show for it. Instead, he stood and walked out of his office, mumbled an excuse to Francesca and a waiting room full of clients, and drove across town.

In all their time together, Saul and Jesse had avoided each other’s homes almost entirely. Except for that one weekend together, they’d stuck almost exclusively to Saul’s car and office. Not that Saul hadn’t seen the kid’s place, but spending time there together when Walter White knew where you lived was just bad strategy.

Saul wasn’t sure what he expected to find upon pulling up outside the house. It was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. The neighborhood was quiet in the Albuquerque sun. Jesse’s red hatchback sat in the driveway.

Saul killed the ignition and ignored the wave of anxiety that ran down his shoulders as he stepped out of the car and strode up the walk. As he rang the doorbell and waited, Saul was suddenly struck by the memory of the last time he’d stood there.

Saul had brought the kid a fucking cactus, he remembered. Jesse had been miserable, fresh out of rehab, and ignoring Saul’s calls. Saul remembered standing in that empty living room and thinking about just how hard it was to rebuild a life, to start fresh when there was nothing but bad memories clawing at your door.

At the time, they’d still been walking circles around each other, and Jesse was more likely to curse him out than kiss him. If someone had told Saul that a month from then he’d be groping Jesse Pinkman in the back of an abandoned arcade, he’d have choked. Now, eight months later, Saul’s whole world had been turned on its ear. And if past experience was anything to go by, things weren’t about to settle anytime soon.

The sounds of the neighborhood - passing cars, chirping birds, distant laughter of playing children - felt like they belonged on a different planet. Saul heard nothing inside the house and took his chance ringing the bell another time, followed by a series of insistent knocks.

Saul was struck by the sudden urge to call Mike, to get the man over there to knock down Jesse’s door and make sure the kid was okay. If anyone else gave a shit about Jesse, it was Mike, with his creepy dead-eyed stare that told Saul he would fucking eviscerate him if he fucked up the kid more than he already was.

But Saul knew Mike was long gone - Walt had told him himself - and that he wasn’t coming back. As Saul stepped away from Jesse’s door, his anxiety ratcheting higher than ever, he tried to ignore the itch nagging at the back of his head that wasn’t quite sure what _long gone_ even meant.

* * *

Another month went by, and Saul had all but given up on ever seeing Jesse again. He would admit that it stung more than a little bit. On particularly bad nights he’d wake up from dreams of doors slamming in the distance, and in the haze of his still-foggy mind, the sounds of Jesse’s laugh and Kim’s stilettos clacking on the tile would meld and leave him gasping for air. But he told himself that he understood. There was nothing Saul could give the kid that he couldn’t find elsewhere with better looks and lower risk.

Life had gone on for a while, and it had almost felt normal. Walt had cashed out, with no sign of returning anytime soon, leaving Saul with a pretty stack of cash tucked away. Despite the fact that Jesse was gone, Saul began to tell himself that things would be okay. He could go back to his usual clientele, his regular courthouse visits, and his casual flirtations with Francesca, who surely missed his antics.

Then, out of the blue one day, Jesse showed up in Saul’s waiting room, _smoking a joint_. Fran had just about lost her shit, and Saul, midway through his now weekly massage, had practically toppled off the table in his urgency to see the kid.

As he hastily shooed his masseuse out the door, Saul was hit with a wave of adrenaline and relief so powerful he had to catch himself on the door of his office. His thoughts raced as he tried to organize them.

Before he could decide whether he wanted to hug the kid or yell at him for going AWOL, Jesse stepped inside the office carrying two heavy duffel bags, which he plunked down onto Saul’s coffee table before flopping onto the sofa.

“You on your own today?” Saul asked, swallowing past the spike in his pulse while buttoning his shirt and replacing his cufflinks. The last thing he needed was Walt breathing down his neck, waiting for one wrong move and the excuse to add one more man to his hit list as he tied up loose ends.

Jesse just looked at Saul, eyebrow raised. Saul held back a double take at the sight of the kid: he’d lost weight in the time since Saul had last seen him. Just how much Saul couldn’t tell, except to notice the sharpness of his jawline and the way his clothes seemed to hang off him even more than usual. His eyes were dull and heavy with purple smudges. A knot of foreboding wedged its way into Saul’s chest, beating down any sense of relief he was feeling.

“Is this what I think it is?” Saul asked, going for a different tactic. Maybe he could get them back on familiar ground, back on the last good conversation they had so many months ago.

“My cut,” Jesse said, voice raw and clipped. “Five million.”

“Finally handed it over, did he?” Saul asked, keeping his voice steady and light. He held back the twenty questions that rushed his brain, all vying to be first in line. He knew the moment he started grilling the kid, he’d bolt, and after so much time, Saul would do just about anything to keep him there, if only for a little while.

When Jesse nodded, eyes distant and glazed, Saul couldn’t hold back completely. He knelt next to the kid and tried to catch his eye. “Jesus, kid, where the hell have you been? You don’t call, you don’t write - for all I know you’re dead in a ditch somewhere. Even Walt —”

At the sound of Walt’s name, Jesse’s eyes flickered up and they glinted with icy fire. “What’s he been tellin’ you?”

“No one’s been telling me shit, Jesse,” Saul said, trying to soothe. He moved from a crouch to sit across the sofa from the kid. “You been AWOL for what, practically two months? What am I supposed to think?” Seeing Jesse sitting there, hackles raised and unable to hide the storm churning behind his eyes, there was a mile of unspoken secrets and undisclosed information between them.

Saul should have trusted his gut, shouldn’t have ignored the warning bells in his head when everything had been telling him to _figure out what happened_. Instead, he’d been a coward, licked his wounds in private, and told himself the kid would be better off alone. Saul ignored the sharp pain in his chest and instead straightened his tie and stepped closer to where Jesse was sitting slumped on the sofa.

Jesse ignored the questions entirely and just nodded toward the duffles again. “This goes to Kaylee Erhmantraut,” he said, pointing to the duffle closest to him, before nodding to the far one. “And that goes to Mr. and Mrs. Albert Sharp. 315 East Pueblo...it’s up in Whitehorse. 2.5 million each. Total of five...”

Saul blinked and there was a low buzz in the back of his brain that left him wondering if he’d heard right. Because _what? That can’t be right._ He stood quickly and moved around to examine the bags.

“Wait, pump the brakes a second, kid,” he said. “You’re telling me that you want to give away your five million? To who, now?”

“Kaylee Erhmantraut,” Jesse gritted out, like saying the words was almost too much work. “Mike’s granddaughter. It’s what Mike wanted.”

There was a knot at the base of Saul’s neck that no masseuse could ever work out and it flared now at the mention of Mike. Mike, whose name had garnered more than one sharp look from Walt in the days after he’d left town. Mike, who had tried his hardest to protect his family, but who would never have asked Jesse to do this. Saul had been too damned busy moping to put the pieces together himself, but here it was, written all over the kid’s face. In Jesse’s listlessness, his sleepless eyes, in his complete withdrawal. The last time Saul had seen the kid like that were the months after Jane Margolis had ODed and they’d all been afraid the kid would go off the deep end.

“So you and Mike,” Saul said, and he was a coward for making the kid spell it out for him. “You been in touch?

The look Jesse shot him was incredulous and disgusted. He shook his head numbly and didn’t say a word. Saul’s ears rang as he tried to process the reality of this situation. Instead, he forged on to the second part of Jesse’s request, shoving thoughts of Mike to the back of his head for later.

“Alright, forget I asked. Who’s this one for?” Saul asked, gesturing to the other bag.

“Drew Sharp’s parents.”

“Sharp,” Saul muttered, and once again Jesse had him racing to catch up. As soon as Saul thought he knew what he was up against, the kid always pulled the rug out from under him. “That was the kid on TV? Went missing? Why would you…?” Sure Jesse had a soft spot for kids - he’d helped Andrea and her kid more than Saul thought was wise, but these were strangers...right? There was definitely something else going on here by the way Jesse continued to avoid Saul’s eyes, the way he looked like he could barely hold his head up.

Jesse just looked at him, eyebrow quirked meanly, like Saul was the jackass not making any sense here.

Jesse knew how to let Saul talk himself in circles, and Saul was tired of making assumptions from everything the kid didn’t say. “Look, I get it. The less I know the better. But what is this, charity?”

Saul moved back around the sofa and sat down, catching Jesse’s eyes. This time, the kid actually let him. “What happened to taking the money and running?” Saul pushed down the unspoken _away with me_ that springs unwarranted to his head.

“I don’t want it. It’s blood money - it needs to go to the families.” Saul let that comment slide for a moment, because it was true - the less he knew the better. But Saul would bet all the money in that room that Jesse hadn’t killed that kid.

“Listen, Jesse,” Saul said. “I know you’re feeling… responsible for what happened. Hell, we’re all so tangled up in this I couldn’t tell you if you’d be right or wrong. But listen to me: at the end of the day, doing anything with that money besides taking it and getting out is just gonna lead to more trouble. _That’s_ what Mike would want you to do.”

Jesse looked at him hard, then. “Mike wouldn’t have wanted any of this. He _didn’t_ want any of this. Mike just wanted to protect his family. It’s the least I could do - I fucking owe him. _We_ fucking owe him, Saul.”

Saul couldn’t help but see red at that. In all the sleepless nights, the weeks and months of wondering what had happened to the kid, he was relieved more than anything to see him alive, but beneath it all, Saul was furious.  

“Oh are we back to _we_ now?” Saul spit out with a grimace. “See, here I was thinking that the last few months of the silent treatment was your way of telling me to fuck the hell off.”

Jesse sighed and put his head in his hands. “Mike was a good guy. He kept quiet is all I’m saying,” he said to the floor.

Saul stood and paced the floor. Sure, Mike had kept quiet. He had no reason to talk, and besides - there was nothing to keep quiet about anymore, anyway. After months of getting used to being alone again, the thought made his stomach churn.

When Saul turned back to Jesse, the kid was staring off into space, not looking at him.

“Alright, look,” Saul said, pushing away the thoughts swirling around behind his eyes and mentally regrouping.  “There is no way to do this the way you want, okay? Not without the feds climbing up our asses.”

“Then I’ll freaking do it myself, Saul, _Jesus_ ,” Jesse spit out, standing and reaching for the bags.

“No, no, no!” Saul said, rushing to stand and stop Jesse’s hand on the bag. “I just gotta make sure you know what you’re doing.” Jesse pulled his hand away like it had been burnt. Saul swallowed down the sting of rejection at that, and focused on the problem at hand. The moment Jesse took that money and tried to give it away, the feds would be on him and he’d land his ass at APD or worse, and they’d all be up shit creek. No, Saul would keep it and figure out what to do with it.  

Jesse met his eyes then, and there was the kid’s own storm churning on his face, mirroring everything that Saul himself was feeling. In that moment, Saul wanted nothing more than to shield the kid — to pack up the Cadillac with the money and hit the road that instant.

But that was never going to happen, and it was high time Saul got used to the idea.

When Jesse stood, he turned his face away and not so subtly wiped a hoodie sleeve across his eyes and sniffed. When he straightened, his eyes were red-rimmed but steely.  “Just get it done, Saul,” he said, voice gravelly and almost unrecognizable before turning and unlocking the door, leaving Saul alone in his office with their erstwhile getaway money and freshly reopened wounds.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few lines of dialogue are pulled from S5E10 _Buried_ and S5E11 _Confessions_.

Calling Walt was the last thing Saul wanted to do, and he knew that Jesse would hate him for it. But if Jesse wanted to wash his hands of everything they’d done, then why would he expect Saul to do any differently? Giving that money back to the source was the easiest solution and Walt was more than adamant about handling the situation himself. At this point, all Saul wanted to do was wash his hands of this situation - yet again - and move on with his life.

Of course, things rarely worked out easily for any of them. In less than 24 hours, all Saul’s work proved to be moot, as Walt barged into his office with news of Hank Schrader’s discovery and Saul frantically worked to cover all of their tracks and bring Jesse in. To no one’s surprise and to Saul’s ever-growing frustration, the kid ignored his calls.

Finally, after another full day of silence, Saul heard about Jesse on the  _ fucking news _ . If Saul had known that Walt’s version of “handling it” had simply meant dumping the money back on Jesse, he’d have done something differently - or so he told himself. It was far too late for what ifs, so Saul had simply made his way down to APD to untangle the new mess that Jesse had found himself in.

His heart hammered in his chest at the sight of Hank fucking Schrader standing so close to Jesse in the confines of the interrogation room. Saul moved swiftly through the door, mouth already moving, rattling off his well-practiced smarm with such ease he couldn’t tell you what he’d said - whatever it was, it had gotten the asshat and the two APD goons out door.

Saul closed the door and just barely refrained from collapsing against it as his mind raced through half a dozen contingency plans. Across the table, Jesse was sitting blank-faced, staring at nothing. The dead look sent a shiver down Saul’s spine and for the second time that week he realized just how much he’d misjudged the situation. If Jesse had looked disconnected a few days ago, it was nothing like what Saul saw before him now.

Jesse was almost unrecognizable: deep purple circles bruised the skin beneath bloodshot eyes, a thick layer of scruff covered his jaw, and by the grimy look of his face and wrinkled clothing, Saul would bet money the kid hadn’t been anywhere near a shower in too many days. The hunch to his shoulders as he sat at the interrogation table made him look small and fragile. The breaths he took - when he even seemed to breathe at all - were shaky and deliberate, like he had to remind his body to perform basic survival functions. Jesse’s hands shook where they sat on the table, and he clenched and unclenched them, unsuccessfully willing them to stop.

Unlike a few days ago, when Jesse’s dead gaze flicked up to acknowledge Saul’s presence, the lawyer was struck by a jolt to his stomach that he recognized as fear. That gave Saul pause. In the time that he’d known Jesse Pinkman, he hadn’t always trusted the kid’s judgment or his impulse control, but he’d never felt scared of who he saw looking back at him. Of all the contingency plans Saul had run through his head on the way over to APD and since he’d stepped into that room, the one he had yet to think through was one that included an unhinged Jesse Pinkman strangling Saul in a soundproofed room. The sight was so far from the version of Jesse that lived in Saul’s memory - the grinning kid who made pancakes as comfort food and stole Saul’s sweats. Of course, Saul wasn’t sure that kid had ever existed to begin with. Now, Saul’s fingers subconsciously twitched, and even though he knew he’d never have gotten a gun through security, he thought he might feel more secure with a weapon at his back that he could have at the ready should things turn south - or rather,  _ further  _ south.

“Listen, kid,” Saul sighed, stepping away from the door to stand across the table from Jesse, back almost to the wall, as far from the kid as he could stand without backing himself into a corner. “I'm gonna try to remain calm, here, but will you please do me a favor and  _ talk _ to me? I know you didn’t want the money, but  _ that _ stunt? And I had to hear about your little act of philanthropy on the  _ news _ ? Jesus, Jesse. Why didn't you call me the second you got arrested?”

Jesse blinked slowly, eyes steady on Saul through his tirade. After a moment, the kid let his gaze fall and finally spoke. “What’s the point?” Jesse rasped, like he hadn’t spoken in days. Saul vaguely wondered if it could be true. “He knows anyway.”

Saul’s pulse spiked and his thoughts immediately turned back to the plans he’d been concocting. “Jesse?” Saul said, because right about now was when he really needed the kid to fucking  _ start talking _ . Jesse’s eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment and Saul, worked up enough by the epic amounts of shit about to rain down on them, mustered up the courage to step across the room, lean across the table, and snap his fingers in Jesse’s face. “Hey, listen to me, would you? For fuck’s sake. What did you tell Schrader?”

“Nothing. Jesus. Just chill out.” The kid looked up at him then, quirking an eyebrow almost snidely. Saul was struck by its reminiscence to a similar look Walt often gave people when he’d run out of patience and was about to let loose on a self-righteous tirade.

The look sent Saul’s stomach churning again and he subconsciously backed up a couple paces. But the kid didn’t go on a tirade. He just sighed and slumped down further into his chair, looking more exhausted than he had before, if that were even possible. Saul was reminded of the last time they’d spent any real time together, where Jesse had tucked himself into Saul’s sectional, looking for all the world like all he wanted was a good night’s sleep. Saul tried to put those two images together, to untangle the emotions sweeping around his head, to tell him who he was talking to.

Where before Saul would have let those feelings for the kid take over, he now pushed them down where they’d be out of the way. If any of them were going to survive, he could not afford a misstep caused from nothing less than relationship drama. Everything they’d worked on for the past year was about to come crashing down on their heads and he was not going to let Jesse Pinkman mope his way through it.

Saul was suddenly overcome with a rage that washed away all the misery he’d felt the other day in the face of Jesse’s desperation. Like cauterizing a wound, he let that dull heat of his anger stoke and smolder until it was a flame that roared in his ears, burning away the ache in his chest. Saul Goodman refused to let Jesse Pinkman bring him down. He’d worked too damn hard to get where he was to have it all wiped away because of some self-destructive prettyboy.

“You’re fucking kidding me, kid,” Saul bit out. “ _ Chill out? _ You’re doing enough of that for the both of us. No, I can’t chill out right now —  not when things have gone nuclear.”

Jesse just shrugged heavily and went back to staring at the floor.

Through his anger, Saul tried to suss out a glimmer of the Jesse he’d known in the shell that sat in front of him.  Every mental image he had of the kid - flashes of an unrestrained smile, hooded eyes looking at Saul through a haze of cigarette smoke, lower lip tangled between teeth - none of them fit the person sitting in front of him. With a final sigh, Saul let it go. The only way he’d get through this now was if he forgot that any other version of Jesse Pinkman ever existed.

* * *

The next day, with Jesse on bail, Walt set a time for the three of them to meet way out in some who-the-fuck-knows-where patch of desert of Walt’s choosing. Saul didn’t ask questions. 

The night before he’d dropped a sullen and stony Jesse off at his place. Saul was still seething, his anger burning bright and cold. For the first time in a long time, he felt clearheaded and focused, like a weight had been lifted and he suddenly had more strength than he knew.

“I’ll pick you up in the morning,” Saul had barked at the kid in the dark of the car. “For the love of god, you go inside and you stay put until then, got it? You get hungry, you get delivery. I don’t wanna hear —”

“I got it,” Jesse had growled before slamming the door behind him.

Now in the light of day, with the kid tucked into the caddy beside him, Saul was starting to deflate and the fire that had prickled at the edges of his vision the day before had faded. He was left with an exhaustion in his bones that anger couldn’t get rid of.

Driving along, accompanied by Jesse’s oppressive silence, Saul was struck by just how much more fucked up their lives had become, something he hadn’t thought was possible. Their weekend together back in September felt like another lifetime ago. Their months of fooling around before that could have been a dream. They had been naive and lonely, Saul had begun telling himself in the months since, and it only barely soothed his regrets. No matter how he looked at how things had gone down, he still couldn’t crack Jesse’s armor enough to understand what the kid wasn’t telling him.

Because hadn’t Jesse been the confident one in their relationship, if you could even call it that? He’d been the most determined to make things happen. The kid had invited himself over, had stood up to Mike, and he’d even been the one to plan their escape.

But Saul knew better than most people that the life you’re living - hell, even your own  _ identity  _ \- could change at the drop of a hat, sometimes by your own sheer force of will, and other times by someone else’s. He couldn’t tell yet which one had changed Jesse.

As he took a sharp right onto a dusty gravel road, Saul let his gaze drift to Jesse, who was looking listlessly out the passenger side window. If Saul didn’t know better, he’d say the kid next to him had never done any of those confident, determined things, hadn’t known a happy moment his entire life, let alone a series of blissful hours and days that they’d tried to stretch out to fill a lifetime.

The weight of those memories was stifling in the quiet of the car. Neither of them had been prone to silent stewing when they were together before. If Saul hadn’t been rattling off some story or another, Jesse would be sitting with his feet on the dash, blowing off steam bitching about Walt’s latest anachronistic rules and schemes. Now, though, the air sat heavy and hot in the car.

Saul mentally shook himself out of the reverie, and forced his thoughts toward the future. They were all on a slippery fucking slope, and the idea of Jesse as an unknown entity facing down Walt when their survival hung in the balance made the hair on the back of Saul’s neck stand on end.

Saul knew he had to get something out of the kid before Walt showed up. He needed to know what variables he was working with, what Jesse had up his sleeve. Because the Jesse he knew wasn’t as stupid as people like Walt made him out to be. Jesse was like Saul: he was a survivor. He’d had a plan before, so he had to have one now.  _ Right? _

But this wasn’t the Jesse he knew, not anymore. What the hell would  _ this _ Jesse do?

When Saul finally pulled up at the coordinates Walt had given him, they were faced with nothing but a patch of anonymous desert and an equally anonymous patch of scrubby brush. He sat back, letting the car idle for a few minutes as he gathered his thoughts, which were racing in too many directions at once. They still had ten minutes before Walt was set to arrive. This was Saul’s chance, in the enclosed space of the Cadillac, where he’d spent so many quiet moments with Jesse. If there were anywhere he could get the kid to tell him a damned thing, then it’d be there. Otherwise, he’d be back at square one, going it alone.

Saul turned to look at Jesse, who continued to stare sullenly out into the barren landscape. “You gotta give me something to work with, Jesse,” he said softly.

Jesse blinked then, slowly, like he was surfacing from a dream. When he looked at Saul, the kid looked confused, like he wasn’t sure how they’d gotten there.

“Look, we can still get out of this shit, but I need you to talk to me,” Saul coaxed.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Jesse said quietly, voice rough.

An icy spike of unease slid down Saul’s spine at the sound of Jesse’s voice - rough and uneven like corduroy over glass. It reminded him of Chuck at his lowest, wrapped in his space blanket and covering every inch of his house in foil, just aching for the outside world to stop hurting him. Of course, that memory was tainted by what would be their first of many betrayals. It left a bitter taste in Saul’s mouth and a slowly creeping dread, overshadowed only by his impatience.

“Kid, you gotta give me something,” he repeated. “I think I deserve that much.”

Saul stopped speaking at the look of disgust on Jesse’s face. It was such a familiar expression to Saul, but the notion of ever seeing his brother in the face of Jesse Pinkman was almost enough for Saul to kick the kid to the curb right then and hightail it down I-40, driving east as fast as his caddy would take him.

Saul steeled himself and tried again. “Seriously, what is up with you?”

Jesse’s eyes flashed at that, and suddenly Saul could see  _ Jesse _ for a moment — his Jesse, instead of the silent unknown he’d been trying to grapple with for the past few days. “I’ve been trying to tell you, if you’d fucking listen to me!”

“Listen to you? You won’t say a fucking word!”

“You just don’t shut up enough to hear a goddamned thing!”

“Then just fucking say it, alright?”

They were both breathing hard from screaming at each other in the cramped space of the car. Jesse seemed about ready to shrink back into himself once more, and Saul had to close his eyes to the sight so he wouldn’t do something he’d regret.

Saul heard Jesse sigh, and then  _ finally _ the kid spoke again.

“It’s just… you do all this stuff to stay above it all, and you think you’re invincible when you come out the other side, you know? I let myself think that that meant something, that that meant I was strong. But I was wrong.” Silence hung heavy around them and Saul didn’t dare say a word. “Then I actually let myself feel shit,” Jesse whispered, voice cracking, and his eyes flickered to Saul so fast it might have just been Saul’s imagination. “I let myself feel shit and I thought that that meant I was like, okay. It meant I wasn’t  _ him _ . But that’s not what it means at all.”

Saul swallowed hard and opened his eyes, turning in the driver’s seat to face Jesse. The cathartic anger he’d felt moments before was suddenly replaced with the misery that he’d tried so hard to get rid of. He knew so well the feelings that Jesse described - the need for distance and the need to be human that warred against each other and refused to find balance. This was the kernel of Saul’s existence, wrapped up in a too-large hoodie, staring him in the face.

Saul  _ understood  _ this. For the first time in months, he felt like he knew the man in front of him. He saw clearly why it was that they had fallen in together in the first place. They were just two people, who’d fallen in with the wrong men, doing the only thing they knew how to do, and desperately trying not to lose themselves in the meantime.

“I get it, kid,” Saul said, reaching out a hand to lay over Jesse’s, to let the kid see that he was with him, that he knew what it was he was going through. “I really do.”

Jesse pulled his hand back, as if burned. “No, you don’t,” he said, eyes turning steely again as he shook his head frantically. “You can’t fucking get it.”

“I do,” Saul insisted. “I didn’t get to where I am by being a good samaritan. This line of work, what we’ve done - no, at the end of the day, it’s not  _ okay _ , but we did what we had to do. The point is, we don’t have to do it anymore.”

Jesse shook his head again. “God, you’re still not fucking hearing me. I’ve hurt so many people, Saul.”

“Listen, we all know who’s  _ really  _ responsible for all this. You can’t — “

“I was the one who shot Gale Boetticher,” Jesse blurted out, and the manic quality of his voice sent a shiver down Saul’s spine and ricocheted around the enclosed space of the car. “He was just doing his job. And I murdered him.”

The confession hung sharp and clear like a dog whistle in the small space. Jesse’s breathing came and went in ragged gasps and he put his fingers to his eyes, pushing against the closed lids, where he was probably seeing stars. Saul knew that Gale had met an untimely end in one of Walt’s schemes. It was hard for him to keep track of each slippery move the man had taken, but to hear it from Jesse that  _ he’d _ been the one to pull the trigger made Saul’s stomach churn and his reality tilt dangerously.

Saul thought back to their first time together - hidden away at that ridiculous lazer tag arcade. It had been frantic and rushed. They’d both been so keyed up, thinking they’d be dead and buried before too long. Saul had put an arm around Jesse’s shoulders as they’d sat side by side at the empty snack bar. In the darkness of the room, Jesse had looked older, and the bright blue of his eyes had shone every time the bright neon lights flashed around them.

“You ever have any regrets?” Jesse had asked him, and Saul hadn’t been able to keep from laughing.

“You kidding me, kid? I’m holed up in an abandoned arcade with meth dealers dogging my every move. I could tell you a thing or two about regrets.”

Jesse had sighed and a small grin flicked across his face. “Well,” he said with a small tilt of his head. “Since we’re gonna die and everything, I hope this isn’t one of them.” And with that the kid had leaned in, grabbed Saul by the tie, and kissed him.

Saul blinked, shaking off the memory and the sudden surge of adrenaline pulling at his shoulders. He tried to desperately stabilize himself with this new piece of information shredding through the already precarious state of their situation. Jesse was telling him the truth, he was actually talking to Saul for the first time in months, just like he’d wanted, and now Saul wasn’t sure how to take this newfound piece of the puzzle.

“I…,” Jesse rasped, trailing off for a moment before his eyes cleared and he said, almost too quiet to hear. “Have you ever killed anyone, Saul?”

Saul just stared at him, throat tight, body frozen. So much for knowing exactly what the kid was feeling. For the first time in a long time, Saul felt the weight of his decisions. Because, no - he’d swindled and cheated and laundered, he’d defended the scum of the earth, but he’d never committed murder. In all the time he’d been slumming it, living on the edge of what most people would consider the good side of the tracks, he’d never taken a life. He should feel good about that: this was something people tried to avoid — at all costs, even. But there was a part of him that simply felt constrained, uncommitted, like he was once again living only half the life he’d built for himself.

He’d been tempted to simply tell Jesse that yes, he had killed, that he  _ understood  _ \- anything to take that haunted look from the kid’s eyes, to quell Saul’s sudden feeling of impotence.

But Saul didn’t lie to Jesse; he simply shook his head.

A grimace spread across Jesse’s face and the kid nodded aimlessly. “I don’t… I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Saul looked at Jesse, at the way his face crumpled, and knew then that that first kiss they’d shared, that first series of gropes and shared skin in the darkness of the arcade, had been the only time they’d been together where Jesse had any innocence left to hold onto.

Outside, Saul heard the sound of tires on gravel and looked up to see Walt’s black Chrysler pull up next to them. Jesse quickly swiped at his face with the sleeve of his hoodie, cleared his throat, and opened the door without a backward glance at Saul.

Saul took a deep breath, and then another, willing his hands to stop fucking shaking. At the sound of Walt’s ignition going dead, Saul shook his head in a futile attempt to clear it, and followed Jesse out into the desert air.

* * *

Saul could never say what it was that caused Jesse to change his mind about skipping town yet again. First he’d wanted to - it had been his idea, then he’d inexplicably changed his mind, and now, once again, he was going to leave - all because Walt told him to this time. The mental whiplash only added to the near-explosive pressure that had taken up residence in Saul’s head at the time. 

The sight of Walt standing there talking to Jesse about leaving, seeming able to reason with the kid in a way that Saul never could, was almost more than Saul could bear. So he’d turned his back, staring off into the godforsaken desert - wondering, not for the first time, how Chuck had ever compelled him to move to this fucking barren hellhole, let alone why he’d stayed there for so long. The sound of raised voices brought Saul’s attention back to two of the people who had so thoroughly fucked up his life.

“Would you just, for once, stop working me?” Jesse said, voice gravelly and raw. “Can you just stop jerking me around for like ten seconds straight?”

“What are you talking about?” Walt countered, and the smooth concern in his voice was like silk.

Jesse just shook his head, scoffed, and shoved his hands deeper into his hoodie pockets.

“Jesse, I am  _ not _ working you,” Walt told him, arms reaching out as if to reel Jesse in.

Saul felt his anger returning, this time muddled and confused. Anger at Walt for working Jesse so smoothly for so long. Hell, he’d worked them both for so long, but he’d saved his subtlest tools, his most featherlight touch for Jesse. The sight reminded Saul of Chuck at his wiliest, at his most vicious. Then there was the anger at Jesse for stringing him along for so long, for not trusting Saul to help him, for going off on his own and thoroughly fucking things up. Finally, there was the anger at himself for never being able to convince Jesse to get the hell out with him when they’d had the chance, for turning Saul into a fool who let his emotions run him ragged for so long, with nothing to show for it.

“Yes - yes, you are,” Jesse said forcefully, and Saul felt a small jolt of pride at the kid for standing his ground against Walt. “Just drop the whole concerned dad thing and tell me the truth.” Jesse pulled his hands out of his pockets, gesturing angrily. “I mean, you're acting like me leaving town is all about me and turning over a new leaf, but it's really about  _ you _ . I mean, you need me gone, just say so. Just ask me for a favor. Just tell me you don't give a shit about me, and it's either this… It's either this or you'll kill me, the same way you killed Mike.”

Saul couldn’t help but interject then, ears ringing at the mention of killing Jesse in the desert. “Whoa, whoa. I did not sign up for this. No one’s killing anyone out here, alright?”

Jesse turned to him then and the look on his face was startled and angry, like he’d forgotten Saul was there.

Jesse turned back to Walt and now he was practically screaming. “I mean, isn't that what this is all about? Huh? Us meeting way the hell out here? In case I say no? Come on. Just tell me you need this.”

When Walt stepped forward, Saul instinctively reached for a gun at his back, but knew that he hadn’t brought one. And when Walt suddenly pulled Jesse in to embrace him, Saul looked away, letting his anger bleed out to the rapid beat of his heart. If Jesse could get out, could escape the death and destruction of the last year, then Saul could give him that.


	4. Chapter 4

They drove the hour back to Albuquerque in tense silence. Saul was practically high off the fresh wave of adrenaline coursing through his veins. No one had died in the desert, but they weren’t in the clear just yet.

“Jesus, kid. What the hell was that all about?” Saul said the moment his office door closed behind them. “Did you ever think about _not_ antagonizing the man when he’s _just_ finally given you the chance to get the hell out of dodge? Did you want him to off you in the desert?”

Jesse tore into Saul immediately, like he’d simply been waiting for Saul to open his mouth. “What the fuck do you know about what I want, _Saul_?”

Saul wanted to shake the kid, wanted to remind him that there was a time when he would have said he knew exactly what Jesse Pinkman wanted. But not for the first time in recent history, Saul wasn’t sure he knew the person standing in front of him. Not anymore and maybe never to begin with. There was a bitter irony at the thought of an old con like him letting that get the best of him.

“Apparently I don’t know jack. You’ll listen to dear ol’ _Heisendad_ but not me? Jesus. Fine. You wanna get the hell outta here, then go: the path has been cleared. Send me a fucking postcard from nowhere.” Saul couldn’t help but get in the kid’s space, couldn’t help but sneer at him, letting the betrayal seep out of him in sour waves.

Jesse glared at him, furious. Good, Saul thought. Anger is easier. Then, as if he were fighting the urge, Jesse grabbed Saul viciously by the tie and tugged him down into a hard kiss that was nothing but a hot swipe of tongue followed by sharp teeth at his lower lip and a grit that could only be the sand they’d brought with them from the desert.

“Yeah,” Jesse growled. “I will.”

Saul was still reeling from the unexpected contact, the first they’d had in months, when suddenly Jesse was across the room, back practically against the door, as far from Saul as he could get. Saul couldn’t tell what had spooked the kid, but here at the end of their road, Saul was willing to let it slide for the moment, and chalk it up to one more Jesse Pinkman mystery that he’d never solve. He leaned back against the front of his desk, willing his blood to stop pounding in his ears while Jesse paced the office like a trapped bobcat.

“You sure there’s no one _else_ you want to say goodbye to?” Saul asked, and he was glad that his voice was steady as he pulled himself back to the matter at hand.  He watched Jesse for a reaction, but the kid avoided his gaze. “No takebacks after I make the call.”

Jesse shook his head and Saul dialed his guy, rattling off the scripted request about his busted vacuum cleaner and answering the man’s gruff questions. When he hung up, Jesse had edged his way closer to Saul once more and now stood facing him with only a few feet between them.

“You got one hour, kid,” Saul told him, swallowing past a lump that had lodged itself in his throat. Jesse nodded vaguely and drew in a shaky breath. Saul couldn’t help the ache in his chest that resurfaced at the thought of Jesse leaving. The Jesse he was familiar with had resurfaced out there in the desert, however briefly - vulnerable and confiding - and Saul couldn’t tell if it was wishful thinking, but he thought he saw a flicker of the kid he knew - hell, the kid he... _cared_ about - in the man who stood in front of him now.

“I’ll go get some bags for your cash,” Saul muttered, taking the excuse to step out for a moment, to get a reprieve from the wash of thoughts he could not subdue. The last few days - hell, the last year, if he were honest - had worn Jesse down like a stone against the tide. Since their first kiss in April until now, ten months in total, Jesse’s light, quirky smile had been replaced by an ever-present grimace. His slim shoulders were now broad and set, holding a weight he’d had to learn to bear more quickly than should have been possible. It wasn’t fair for Saul to expect Jesse to stay the same, but he’d gone and let himself get too attached to something that was never meant to last, something that by its very nature was fleeting.

When Saul returned to the office with a bag for Jesse’s payment, the kid was back to pacing the length of the room. His arms swung back and forth and his fists clenched in spasms, as if he were trying to hold himself together.

Saul moved to his safe, where he opened it and began pulling out the kid’s money. The sight of it took him back to that last lazy Sunday evening, where Jesse had sat on Saul’s balcony smoking a cigarette and telling him how easy it could be for them to get out. Saul supposed the kid was right: with the money, it could be that easy - and he wondered what would have happened if they hadn’t waited. But now, after months of messy silence and the wolves finally nipping at their ankles after dodging them for so long, all their talk was a distant memory.

As Saul stood there packing up the kid’s future, he was struck by a bitterness that surprised him. He had spent so much time working through the logistics of their escape that he hadn’t even stopped to think about everything else that stood in their way. Here they both were, with enough cash to get them spirited away from this godforsaken hellhole. But life never happened the way you played it out in your head. The moment you started spinning dreams, you’d might as well kiss them goodbye. Everything Saul had ever touched, and hell, everything Jimmy had ever touched, turned to shit the second he tried to make something out of it.

The soft flick of a lighter pulled Saul from his thoughts and he looked up to see Jesse leaning against Saul’s desk, taking a drag off a joint.

“Whoa, whoa, sorry, kid,” Saul said, stepping around the side of the desk to stand in front of the kid. “But I can’t let you do that.”

Jesse just eyed Saul, staring at his face and letting his gaze wander slowly down Saul’s body. The act made Saul pause, sending a faint shiver up his spine that reminded him of days long gone, of office visits where Jesse would look at him like that and Saul would have to do everything in his power to keep himself all business.

Saul shook his head and pulled himself away from Jesse’s eyes, stepping close and yanking the joint out of his mouth. The kid sputtered and his gaze turned mutinous. Good, Saul thought. There’s the anger again. It’ll make this whole thing a lot easier.

“My guy won’t take you if you’re fucking stoned,” Saul told him. He was tempted to take a hit of the thing himself, anything to calm his nerves and beat back the voice in his head that kept saying _this is it, this is it, this is it._

In his moment of weakness and regret, he let Jesse snatch the joint out of his hand, where he put it out and stuffed it back into his pocket. Saul simply turned away at that. The kid had never followed his advice before, so there was no reason for him to start now, here at the end of the line. But Saul would be damned if he let the kid fuck himself over this time.

When Huell came through Saul’s office door, he eyed the scene in front of him with his usual unimpressed stare. As Saul picked up the bag of cash and moved toward Jesse, he raised his eyebrows at Huell and jerked his chin toward the kid, which put the man on higher alert.

Jesse turned toward Saul and took the bag from his hand. His grip was too tight on the handle and Saul could hear the shakiness of his breath.

“So do I, like, get to pick where I go?” Jesse asked him. The kid’s eyes were pleading, as if whatever came out of Saul’s mouth would make or break him.

“I imagine you’ll have a say. It’s your life,” Saul said, hoping to reassure him, but knowing it was all for nothing. He couldn’t help but think back to their weekend together. They’d shot the shit about so many different things during that time, but Saul was drawn to images of off-season resort towns, fruity drinks, and sandy beaches. “You got anything in mind?”

Jesse ducked his head, back to avoiding Saul’s gaze. “I’m thinking maybe Alaska,” Jesse said quietly.

“Alaska?” Saul asked, the word tumbling from his mouth in disgust. Saul couldn’t help the sharp pang in his chest as he realized that everything they’d done together, everything they’d shared, might as well have been a dream, for all it seemed to have stuck with the kid. Saul felt foolish for letting himself get caught up in this mess, and with a kid who was young enough to be his own son, and who clearly felt it was better to get out on his own than be stuck with the likes of an aging Slippin’ Jimmy.

Jesse simply nodded his head vaguely, eyes already miles away.

“Well,” Saul rasped, clearing his throat, and holding out his hand to Jesse. It felt odd to shake the kid’s hand, but Saul was at a loss. “Good luck, kid. I mean it.” Jesse looked up at Saul and then down at his hand, as if he were unsure what to do with it. Then, just as Saul was about to retract it, Jesse reached his hand out and grasped Saul’s hand hard in his. The death grip Jesse gave him was the only sign the kid gave that there was anything left between them.

This was it, Saul knew. This was the last time he’d ever see Jesse Pinkman, and the force of that realization rooted him to the floor, paralyzed. The part of him that felt ashamed for ever wanting this, for ever thinking he had a shot at making Jesse happy, was overpowered by his panic that the kid wouldn’t go, and that something even worse could happen instead.

When Jesse turned away, Saul met Huell’s eyes again and tipped his head in the direction of Jesse’s pocket, where the kid was still holding onto his dope. Saul turned his back as Huell lifted the stash, ignoring the twinge of guilt at the final betrayal.

* * *

Saul had Francesca clear his schedule for the rest of the day.

He sat behind his desk, where he leaned back, pulled out a glass and his bottle of cheap scotch, and willed himself to shed the cloying panic that tensed his shoulders. Saul Goodman didn’t panic. Saul Goodman knew what he was doing. Saul Goodman knew how to get where he was going, and he didn’t care about making the tough calls. Saul Goodman didn’t wallow in the past because the past did not pay.

He was halfway through a second glass, panic receding into the background while maudlin nostalgia tried to take over, when there was a commotion out front. The sound of the front door opening and Francesca’s startled yell was quickly replaced by the sight of Jesse Pinkman bursting through his office door, red-faced and with murder in his eyes.

“What the hell happened?” Saul crowed, bursting to his feet as his panic returned with a vengeance, spilling down his shoulders like an electric shock. “He a no-show?”

Before Saul could react, Jesse’s fist collided with his nose, and Saul fell. All other thoughts fled him beyond the base instinct to protect himself as Jesse kicked him repeatedly in the stomach.

When the kid let up just an inch, just enough for Saul to pull in a gasp of air, Jesse lunged at him again, this time with a fist to Saul’s temple that almost put Saul out.

Saul’s vision was hazy and his head spun. He could barely see a thing as the blood dripped into his eyes, but the sight of Jesse looming over him, chest heaving, face savage as he wound up to hit Saul again, made Saul do the only thing he’d ever been good at: protecting himself.

It was a choice he’d return to later, to mull over like an inscrutable piece of art. But for now, Saul would save his own ass.

He scrambled across the floor, yelling out incoherently to Huell before yanking open his desk drawer and pulling out his gun. He barely had it in hand before Jesse was on with a yell, grappling the gun from his hand and aiming it right back at him, hand on the trigger.

Saul’s blood pounded in his ears as he stared down Jesse Pinkman, all traces of the kid he knew vanished from the bloodshot, manic stranger standing over him.

Jesse whipped around at the sound of the door being forced open, where both Huell and Fran stood. He pointed the gun at them, yelling for them to stay where they were before moving back to Saul.

With a gun pointed at him again, Saul did the only thing that had ever saved him in these situations he tried to talk his way out.

“I don’t know what happened here! What did I do?” Saul couldn’t make himself look Jesse in the eye, not when those eyes were murderous and any wrong move on his part may just be his last.

“You stole it off me,” Jesse spat. “You and him stole it right out of my pocket, didn’t you.”

Saul’s stomach dropped at the thought that this insanity was all over a stolen joint. “Okay, kid, calm down,” he said frantically, trying with every fiber of his being to speak clearly, to get through to the kid. “Yes, I had Huell lift your dope. I told you I couldn’t risk the guy not taking you!”

If it were possible, Jesse’s anger flared even higher. “No!” he growled. “Before. The cigarette. You stole the cigarette.”

Saul vaguely wondered if he’d sustained brain damage from the multiple fists to his face because the kid wasn’t making a goddamned bit of sense. He knew he’d regret questioning him, but he also knew silence wouldn’t get the gun out of his face.

“The ricin cigarette,” Jesse spat, eyes wide, and the bottom dropped out of Saul’s stomach. “You had Huell steal if off of me! And all for that asshole Mr. White?! He poisoned Brock and you _helped_ him.” Jesse’s eyes burned as he spit venom, and Saul frantically thought back. Because the kid was right, Saul _had_ had Huell lift that cigarette. At the time, Saul had been more than happy to get that thing away from Jesse. The thought of the kid carrying poison around like that had put Saul on edge. He’d washed his hands of the situation after that.

“Okay, Jesse, calm down. Calm down, okay? You —”

“Say it one more time. Tell me to calm down one more fucking time!”

“You’re right!” Saul blurted, anything to keep the kid from pulling the trigger. “You’re right, okay? I had Huell lift your cigarette, but Walt made me. He told me he was helping you, that he was _saving_ you. I never would have agreed to it if I’d known what he was gonna do. Jesse, you gotta believe me. I didn’t want any of this!”

Saul’s head was pounding and blood was streaming out of his nose and from a gash over his left eyebrow. He could barely see a thing, but for the anger on Jesse’s face as he continued to point the gun at Saul’s chest. For all of Saul’s evasive tactics, for all of his slithering his way out of sticky situations, from the moment they’d come together, Saul had never pulled a fast one on Jesse. If only he could get the kid to see that.

For an instant, Saul thought he’d gotten through, that the look of hesitation that crossed Jesse’s face meant that maybe things were going to be okay. But then Jesse gritted his teeth and practically snarled at Saul before rushing him with the gun. Saul backed away as fast as he could, but the kid had him cornered. Saul was sure this was it, that he would be dead any moment from a point blank shot to the head. Shot in the back of his office by Jesse Pinkman, feet from where they’d fucked on more than one occasion. Jesus Christ, Saul’s life was like a bad soap.

Before Saul could reconcile the scattershot thoughts in his head, Jesse was reaching into his suit jacket and fumbling in his pockets before pulling out what he was looking for: Saul’s keys. Saul cowered, frozen, as Jesse backed away, unable to even move as the kid aimed Saul’s gun at Huell and Fran, screaming at them to get out of the way.

And then he was gone, leaving Saul Goodman’s life crumbling around him and wishing viciously that he’d never laid eyes on Walter White or Jesse Pinkman.

* * *

Saul’s whole body ached and his head spun. He was vaguely aware of Francesca manhandling him into a car - not his Cadillac, he noted idly - but he couldn’t think much further than that because his whole brain was focused on the sharp feeling of Jesse Pinkman kicking him in the ribs and growling in his face, all the while holding Saul’s own gun to his head.

All of Saul’s instincts had been pointing in this direction - the unease he’d felt every time he’d seen Jesse that week. The alarm bells had been going off, but he was too blind to do anything about it. He’d let his feelings get in the way. _What a fucking chump, what an amateur. Even Jimmy McGill wasn’t stupid enough to let his feelings blind him that completely._

When he had a chance to gather his bearings, realizing that he was bleeding all over his suit, Saul noticed they were cruising down Central Ave toward downtown. “Where the hell are you taking me, Fran?” he croaked.

“Home,” she told him without taking her eyes off the road, her hands at ten and two - the model citizen. Saul pushed down a wave of guilt at dragging Fran into this mess. She put up with enough of his shit to have to deal with a threat to her life. Then her words caught up with him...

“No, wait,” Saul said sharply, and his thoughts immediately turned to Jesse, standing in his kitchen wearing Saul’s UOAS sweatshirt and flipping pancakes. The image felt like a fucking hallucination next to Jesse holding a gun to his bloodied face. “The kid stole my keys. He has my goddamned Cadillac, and he knows where I live.”

“Where am I supposed to take you, then?” Fran demanded, glowering at him fiercely before returning her eyes to the road.

Saul wracked his brain for a safe place where Jesse couldn’t find him, but he came up with nothing. He swallowed down a wave of bitterness and shook off the voice in his ear that said, _great idea, Jimmy, fucking a client. Clearly that ended well_. The voice sounded an awful lot like Chuck. If only he hadn't sold Chuck’s house. The bastard would have loved that, Jimmy hiding out there. Chuck would rise from the grave to hold that over him out of sheer spite.

“Christ, I really hate to ask...” Saul started, knowing that Francesca would see what he was asking a mile away.

“No,” Francesca said forcefully.

“Please, Fran, don’t make me beg,” Saul begged, but it was the only option he had. “You’re safe. The kid doesn’t know where you live. Just dump me on your couch.”

“You’re not bleeding on my sofa, Goodman.”

Saul closed his eyes. He couldn’t think about this when Jesse Pinkman was rampaging out there doing god knows what. He felt around in his pockets and pulled out his phone, on the off-chance that he’d heard from the kid. Of course, there was nothing from Jesse. Instead, he had a text from Huell. _Cadillac found @ White res. No sign of Pinkman._

Before he could tell Fran to drop him back at the office, he realized she was passing the turnoff to his condo downtown, heading west toward South Broadway, where he knew she rented an apartment. Saul heaved a sigh of relief. “You’re a lifesaver, Francesca - and I mean that literally. I owe you one.”

“You owe me a lot more than that,” she told him, and they drove the rest of the way in silence.

* * *

When Fran let him into her apartment, Saul slipped out of his shoes immediately at her pointed look, and padded across her small entryway in his thin dress socks. He hovered by her kitchen island as she walked away, down a hallway, where he could hear her opening drawers.

Saul looked around, partially in a desperate need to distract himself, and partially because he realized that in all the years that Francesca has worked for him, he’d never seen her home. The place was tidy, if somewhat careworn. For some reason, the pale blue walls and the large cream sofa in her living room reminded Saul of Kim Wexler. There was something practical yet soft about the whole space that calmed Saul, that slowed his racing pulse.

Saul turned around as he heard Fran returning. She carried with her a neatly folded towel and a stack of clothes. When she handed them to Saul, he was startled that he recognized the outfit - a white track suit and magenta polo that he thought the dry cleaner had lost.

“Where did you get these?” he asked, though part of him already knew the answer. Francesca was responsible for his dry cleaning, after all.

“I hate that outfit,” she said, mouth pulled into a tight moue of distaste.

“You stole my clothes?”

“Be grateful I didn’t burn them,” she said. “Besides, there’s no point in complaining about it now.”

Saul rolled his eyes, but she was right - he couldn’t complain when it was that or a bloody suit that he desperately wanted out of.

After reciting a list of things Saul was not allowed to do in her apartment - “leave my minibar alone, Goodman, and don’t even think about opening my bedroom door” - she left, ever the stalwart employee, and returned to the office. Saul made a mental note to give her a bonus after all this was over.

When the silence became too much to bear, he retreated to the bathroom, where he shed his stained suit and kicked it into a corner, as far from him as he could get it. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, face battered, hair a wild mess, leaving his bald spots showing in glaring ways he was always so careful to cover.

He had lost weight, Saul realized, looking over his chest and down to his hips. The complacent gut he’d gained from too much fast food and late nights had stripped away when he wasn’t looking. But instead of looking trim, as he remembered Jimmy in his Howard Hamlin knock-off suit, now Saul looked gaunt, a hunted animal.

The white noise of the shower was a blessing - the warm fug of the water a stark contrast to the morning’s trip to the desert. Had they really been out there only that morning? It felt like a lifetime ago. But as Saul washed the blood out of his hair, he also felt the grit of sand and the chafe of old windburn at his cheeks. He could not hide from reality for long.

He tried to let his mind go blank, to not think about Jesse, to simply rest. But he couldn’t forget the look in his eyes. Saul had only ever seen cold anger like that in two people before. One of them was dead, and the other paid his salary. Chuck was too lawful to actually commit murder himself, and Walt...well, Walt did what he had to do. Jesse didn’t have Chuck’s moral high ground or Walt’s cold calculation; but anyone in their business did what they had to to survive.

He stood under the water until it became tepid. When he stepped out of the shower, he knew what he had to do. If they weren’t going to survive this together, then he’d have to survive it on his own, and he damn well wasn’t going to let Jesse get the upper hand on him again.


End file.
